The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-08-06

"PARDs-You are invited to Roundy Jim's cabin ne Xt Sunday mornin' for preachin', 'O''' T. SIMPSON,
 Preacher at s. Gulch."
 This was the notice posted in the principal saloon of Slushy Gulch Camp on Saturday morning, October 1S-. So when the weeks work was finished and the miners were ready for the usual congregating at the bar room on Saturday night, as each one entered the door his attention was called to the notice. You may be surprised when I say this notice was welcomed by a majority of these rough looking persons whose home had been here for years. We cannot expect to find all of this class on the highway to holiness but under many of these rough exteriors lie hidden graces that would put to blush some whose names appear in capital letters on church rolls; whose cushioned pews in the sanctuary afford a retired place for quietly arranging for the next weeks business or pleasure.
 The characters in and around Slushy Gulch had the same peculiarities be- longing to any mining population, and every one knows the various shades of humanity which gather in those attractive localities in the golden eldorados of the Rockies and Sierra Nevadas.
 Many exclamations of approval and condemnation were heard from these rough sons of border life as to the o% ister of the gospel" as he had signed the notice "preacher at s. Gulch." It never entered the minds of the "boys" that there might be wide difference in the definitions of "minister" and "preacher ;" and Simpson, who in his earlier years knew something of church and minister, also knew that his present standing among his part ners in the gulch would not warrant the use of the word "minister," and hence "preacher" was used, for any one might preach, though apostolic hands were as foreign to Simpson's head as the hands of a tonsorial artist to his uncut locks and unshaven face.
 It was now eleven o'clock. The usual carousal of drinking and gambling had occupied the hours of this Saturday night. Simpson was not at the bar-room that evening, and his absence was made notably appar- ent by one of the leading spirits of Slushy Gulch Camp bringing his clenched fist down on the card table before him, rising from his stool and in a clear, ringing voice, which startled everyone in the room, said:
 "Now look here, pards, you have every mothers son of you read that air writin' on the door by Simpson, and he's one of us, and we can't go back on him. I want to see every one of you at Roundy Jim's cabin with clean hands and faces, and you, Mister bar keeper, close this saloon tomorrow, and I want to see you there, too, or Pll plant the whole state of Iowa on your ranch"
 It is needless to say that the au- dience was electrified at these words from one of the wickedest men in the gulch. A vote was taken, deciding to hear Simpson, the whisky dealer vot- ing in the negative. The saloon was not opened on Sunday morning-the undertaken had business there.
 Sunday morning dawned on Slushy Gulch Camp bright and fair. At the appointed time Roundy Jim's cabin was full to overfowing with the miners, and shortly the tall form of Simpson appeared at the door. Gaz- ing a moment at the motley crowd, he passed to the kitchen table, laid aside coat and hat and proceeded to business at once. His discourse, with out text or manuscript, was as fol- lows:
 "Pards-You must let me tell this story in my own way, and I want none of your back talk" On the table before him in full view of all lay an eight-inch bowie knife and two derrin9ers. sI want to tell about Joe